Conversations In Bars: The I.R.A.

*Note on today’s post: As with everything that happens to me in a bar, this is as true as I remember it. However, unlike most of my bar stories, I was sober for this one.

Ah yes, here we are again…

It was a Tuesday afternoon when I showed up to hit on the bartender.
I’d seen her a few nights before, working the Sunday night shift. This particular bar, in a working class neighborhood, was an Irish hangout. Saturday night, the place was awash in uilleann pipe music, cameraderie and pints of Guinness.
A friend of mine brought me there. I had a blast. That night ended early the next morning at someone’s apartment, with a rum-soaked dash into the neighbor’s pool for a quick dip before the neighbor came out in his boxers to yell at us.
But that’s another story.

This is how it always starts.

So after a bit of discreet investigation, I found out the bartender also worked the Tuesday day shift. I got there around 1 pm. The place was just about empty. I ordered a pint (mmm…afternoon drinking…) and waited for her to come back over so I could strike up a conversation.
While I was waiting, the guy who was sitting a bit down the bar wandered over and started talking. He’d started his afternoon drinking while it was still morning.

What followed was quite possibly the strangest real-life conversation I’ve ever had.

The Other Guy: Hello. Who are you?
El Guapo: Hey. I’m [name redacted].
TOG: Did they send you?
EG (looking a bit confused): Sorry?
TOG: Did they tell you where to find me?
EG: (Even more confused): Sorry, who?
TOG: Would it be easier for you if I turned around?
EG (Bewildered): Would what be easier?
TOG: To shoot me.
EG: (Lonnnng pause) Sorry man, I’m just here for a beer.
The guy makes one of those “oh, so that’s how it is” expressions. I, still bewildered go back to my beer, trying to figure out what the hell just happened.
But The Other Guy wasn’t done.

TOG: I’ve been here over ten years, but I knew they wouldn’t forget. Now with all these peace talks, I knew they’d send someone over to clean up.
EG: Listen man, I’m just here to hit on the bartender
TOG: Sure you are. I guess it wouldn’t help if I tell you about my life here since I’ve been gone…

So for the next while, we chatted. He told me stories of the old country, of his kids. He told me about the construction business he’d built up.
The drink flowed freely.
I must have opened my mouth and spoke at some point, because eventually, he realized I was too much of an idiot to be anyone’s hit man.

The evening (yeah, we were there for a while) ended when he said he had to head off. I told him I needed food. He offered to give me his construction business.
I heartily agreed.

And that was the last I ever saw of him.

I could have built my very own Assassin HQ!

And the bartender? Apparently The Other Guy scared here and she didn’t want to mess around with any of his friends.
Meh.

Truth is always stranger than fiction, right? People make think I’m sweet and innocent-looking…but, I may have really messed with that dude given the chance. It’s fun to think about anyway.
Mmmmm….Guiness…

Do you know that I’ve never gotten a “knock.” Not ONE! The fact is that I’m not much of a drinker. Two or three and I’m done. I’ve never drank long enough to get a knock. Maybe someday… A guy can dream.

This is a fun read. Sort of makes me think of the first cruise I ever went on (so far only, but I will go again dangit!)
Cruisers hit me with their fascinating life stories because I seemed genuinely interested. I was a captive audience, much like someone at a bar with a full beer in front of them (or the bartender, as someone pointed out above)
loved reading this slice of life…

Hey never mind the reference of being younger, those ladies still look incredibly beautiful and wear even less to entice the weak, well I have been known to glimpse the odd cleavage but I refuse to be called weak 🙂 lmao

My husband loves dive bars too – when we were in our 20s, he was super thin (like Iggy Pop thin and looked like him too) and he’d often get hit on by old men in dive bars. It was pretty hilarious – I told him to get us a sugar daddy!

“he realized I was too much of an idiot to be anyone’s hit man.”—Haha, sometimes it pays to appear dense. Sorry you missed out on the bartender though. Then again, it was probably fortuitous given you got a good thing going on with Ms. Guapola now.

This was in teh days when we could still smoke in bars, so Rod could have easily been stuck in a corner –
“For your consideration: An idiot, looking for a date, finds something else entirely…in the Twilight Zone.”

I love this! As someone who has occasionally found herself at a bar, sitting next to someone who wants a chat when I’m not feeling it, I’ve got my new exit strategy. “Did they tell you where to find me?” oughtta do it.

Love your bar stories. Put the day in much better perspective. The end reminded me of the country song about beer and people ..I can’t think of it..do you know the one I mean?
Hi TMWGITU
What? You wrote about hitting on a bartender.. 😉

Guap – always take your Balaclava off when you go into an Irish Pub. Firstly you wont feel the benefit when you leave the place and secondly you won’t be confused with “Mad Dog”, “Terrier Teeth” or whatever name the freedom fighters/drug dealers gave themselves!

We all have a calling! Balclavas are a throwback to me childhood and waiting at the bus stop with mum to go to school in a hand knitted one several sizes to large for me (I would “grow into it” as they used to say) so that those dark dank winter mornings were complete with me walking into lamposts, prams, bikes and being scolded by me dear old mum for being so clumsy. The fact that I could not see was not a recognised defence in her autocratic world. Happy days….

Round the clock drinking- afternoon drinking while it’s still morning night time drinking that ends early in the morning, freestyle drinking, slalom drinking, endurance drinking, yay! I had to press this story.

Fess it yo – you’re a hitman! Man, that’s weird. The oddest conversations I have in bars, I forget about on account of the drink. The fountains and fountains of drinks. Are you sure this guy wasn’t just hitting on you?

Um, dude. A little insensitive there… about two weeks ago, my daughter braided a rope (I was so proud!), took her like three hours of just sitting there twisting and twisting and weaving. When she was done, I got up to give her a high five and realized that I couldn’t move.

When I worked in restaurants, it was mostly understood that kitchen staff could show up in whatever condition you liked, as long as they could do the job.
Amazing how many people that was too difficult for…

Great story! I love Ireland (and I realize that this story takes place in America–or in New York City, which is close enough).What a fruit loop. I know that a lot of Irish did come to NY in the 80s and 90s during the Troubles (and being illegal, I think a lot of them worked the construction biz). I don’t think that ANY of them, however, probably rate an IRA hitman. I suspect this dude had probably been affiliated with the Republicans when he was back in Ireland in a low-level way, and after coming to America, some incipient mental disorder began to manifest itself. This would be exacerbated by alcoholism, a condition suffered by approximately 100% of Irish people.

Now, because I fixate on the weirdest, most tertiary details, I want to know about the neighbor’s pool (mentioned as an anecdote before the main story).Was this in New York? And was this a private pool? I don’t think of people as having private pools in NYC, even the ultra-rich, because it seems like space is at such a premium. But my knowledge of the City, as you know, is pretty scant (I’ve been to Manhattan & Brooklyn, briefly). Of course there are certain areas of New York State where I assume everyone has a private pool.

He was pretty deep in his cups by the time I turned up, but younger me was a lot more gullible, so…

This whole mess took place at a bar in a very working-class Irish neighborhood in Queens. (There were, I think, two dozen busy Irish bars in two or three blocks there.)
The morning pool attack is a completely different (and hilarious to me) story, to be told at a later date, but it was a simple above ground swimming tank, maybe a 10′ at its widest, oval, about 5 ft deep.
They were all the rage with suburban homeowners for a while. Might still be.
No idea – I rent.

Well, I always like your autobiographical stories. I’d love to hear about the pool attack. The story that I think about the most is your brief trip to Turkey. I try not to think about your naked snow adventures. Damn you for making me think about that.

Probably for the first year my girl and I were together, all of my stories started with “so I’m in this bar…”
Entirely too many interesting things happened to me in those places.

(I lured her on to our first date by promising to tell her the story of the first naked bar dance.)
(It was a dinner.)
(In a very public, non-secluded place.)
(Near a police station.)
(You know, so she’d feel safe.)